Blessings

This is a post that has taken me all summer to write.  For one, I needed to make sure the adventure was over.  And for another, I knew that while this post will be filled with challenges, I wanted to make sure I conveyed just how blessed I felt, and do feel.

Prior to taking our trip to Iowa this summer, I made sure the van was ready for the trip.  You may remember me commenting on it and if I had planned ahead, I'd have a link here for you...but I don't...just go back to June and you'll find it.  Living in the desert makes one appreciate taking very good care of vehicles and not having an unreliable one.

On July 3rd, I was headed to the farm. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Northeastern Iowa.  I had a vet appointment for Panther at 11AM.  While we didn't leave as early as I had hoped to, we had plenty of time to get to the farm.  That is if I didn't end up with an over heating engine.

So there I was on the side of the road, my cell phone had gone kaput on Thursday. Eric was on the golf course with his brother.  However, Josh, my brother, was suppose to be picking him up around 10:30 and taking him to the farm.  I was stuck at a corner that they would most likely pass me, so my blessing, that if I just waited, they would inadvertently show up!  However, a wonderful nice local trucker stopped and let me borrow his phone.  I felt blessed again.  And that I knew off the top of my head at least half a dozen local numbers I could call.  I called my brother, and he agreed to pick up water when picking up Eric and help me out.  Josh is a very handy brother to have!  I mean what a blessing he is!  I made a second call to my mom and asked her to take Panther to the vet for me.  Another blessing, thank you all who helped us out!  While we waited I noted that it was only about 75 degrees.  Here had it happened, I would not have known nearly as many numbers off the top of my head and it would have been 110 degrees, too hot to stay with the van, too hot to be walking along the side of the road especially with 3 kids.  BLESSINGS! If we were to have van troubles, to have them there!

Blessings, it was an intake gasket, which had been replaced in January and still under warranty.  It delayed us getting on the road by a day, but that was okay!

Our driver side window stopped working shortly after getting the van back.  We didn't take the time to get it fixed before leaving IA.  On our drive the first day, we talked about how we hoped it could be a simple fuse fix.  As we loaded our van the next morning, in Kearney NE, Eric took a look at the fuse.  And while he had the hood up, thought he'd take a look at the coolant.  God works in amazing ways!  This is so random of an action for Eric to do, but what a blessing!  Our water pump was going out/had gone out, we were empty on coolant.  We didn't know the issue, so I walked over to NAPA --blessing right behind our hotel, and I found it while walking the dog that morning.  Blessing, they were out of the coolant we needed, a blessing because I wanted to just feed the van coolant until we got home.  Since it was the water pump, had we gotten on the road, we would have been stuck on the side of the interstate in Nowhereville Nebraska in a much more of a serious pickle!  Blessing that a local auto shop was referred to us and while they had vehicles lined up and keys on the counter, they were able to diagnosis quickly and get us right in. Blessing because we had discovered the wonderful park the night before, and it allowed dogs, and the shop drove us there and picked us up and we had two hours to play.  Life is FILLED with blessings!

Unfortunately it wasn't the fuse for the window, and that is still not fixed.

We made it to Colorado and got to see some great friends, we just got there later than we had planned.  But life isn't about OUR plan now is it?

The next day, as we drove through that horrible storm with hail for an hour, blessings that we didn't have hail damage or a cracked windshield.

Back home, when we went on our peach picking adventure the rest of the day was cut short because of a tire issue.  As in, both front tires were bald.  These are the new tires I bought last August and rotated every 6,000 miles, and have taken care of them.  When we left IA they looked good.  This was a puzzle.  But I had never seen such smooth tires ---well okay I have, but they were racing tires. I took the van in to the place I bought the tires.  After getting the tires off and looking at it all, it turns out that when I got new struts, an alignment had not been done.  I thought one had been done and any time I noticed a pull, it was on the highway and very windy at the time.  I made the trip across town to talk to the struts company and explained that I had been under the impression that an alignment had been done, and had they informed me that it had not been done, I would gotten one done myself.  Blessing, after thinking about it for a day, the company agreed to pay for the two new tires and stated that my reasoning made sense.

So while this summer has been filled with challenges with the van, I really see many blessings along the way and I am forever grateful for them!  Eric and CJ thought we should just throw in the towel and buy a new van in Nebraska, actually I think Eric thought we should in IA, but while our vacation budget had an unexpected water pump added, that can be handled, an unexpected new (to us) van...that would completely busts any budget!

I challenge you, to always find the blessings within a situation and while dealing with whatever you may need to deal with, focus on your blessings!